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Speaker 1: today at m o z y dot com. Welcome to
Speaker 1: brain Stuff from how Stuff works dot com where smart happens. Hi,
Speaker 1: Am marciall Brain with today's question. Meteors burn up when
Speaker 1: they hit the atmosphere. Why doesn't the space shuttle burn up?
Speaker 1: When a small meteor enters the Earth's atmosphere, it goes
Speaker 1: from traveling through a vacuum to traveling through air. Traveling
Speaker 1: through a vacuum is effortless, it takes no energy at all,
Speaker 1: but traveling through air is a completely different story. A
Speaker 1: meteor moving through the vacuum space typically travels at speeds
Speaker 1: reaching tens of thousands of miles per hour. When the
Speaker 1: meteor hits our atmosphere, the air in front of it
Speaker 1: compressed is incredibly quickly. When a gas is compressed, its
Speaker 1: temperature rises. This causes the meteor to heat up so
Speaker 1: much that it glows. The air burns the meteor until
Speaker 1: there is nothing left. Re Entry temperatures can reach as
Speaker 1: high as three thousand degrees fahrenheit. Obviously, it would not
Speaker 1: be good for a spacecraft to burn up when it
Speaker 1: re enters the atmosphere. Two technologies are used to allow
Speaker 1: spacecraft to re enter. One is called a blade of
Speaker 1: technology and the other is called insulating tile technology. In
Speaker 1: a blade of technology, the surface of the heat shield
Speaker 1: melts and vaporizes. In the process, the vapor carries away
Speaker 1: a heat. This is the technology that protected the Apollo spacecraft.
Speaker 1: The space shuttles are protected by special silica tiles. Silica
Speaker 1: or s I O two is an incredible insulator. It's
Speaker 1: possible to hold a space shuttle tile by the edge
Speaker 1: and then heat up the center of the tile with
Speaker 1: a blowtorch. The tile insulates so well that no heat
Speaker 1: makes it to the outer edges. These tiles insulate so
Speaker 1: well on the space shuttle that they keep the heat
Speaker 1: of reentry from ever reaching the body of the spacecraft.
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